Inteligencia emocional

John is a first-generation student from the western suburbs of Melbourne. His parents are migrants from Malta. John’s father is a labourer and his mother is not in paid

employment. John attended an outer suburban campus of the university.

Based on the above background profile and in terms of categories used to summarise various key family characteristics and to construct a background that is commonly understood by academics, John the university student can be categorised in at least three ways. First, as working-class, second as a migrant and third as a first-generation student. Furthermore, due to the presumed lack of cultural capital these categories imply, a more general category can be applied which encapsulates each of these categories, specifically John can be described as a student ‘at-risk’.

Such categories can be useful short hand for describing students and their so-called backgrounds. However, this short hand becomes problematic when it is used,

The categories are more often symbols of academics’ anxieties towards a massified university student population. For example, concern about students’ ‘backgrounds’ invariably takes place within the context of discussions about a decline of academic standards. Once it is determined that a student falls into a particular category or more than one, the concern felt by academics that is inherent in the categories leads to the Alternative student experience narrative being applied, along with subsequent fantasising about their lives (Walkerdine, 1990). Such fantasies convince the categoriser that the student’s needs and lives are known and understood. For example, the application of the Alternative student experience narrative would, in John’s case, lead to a presumption that, by virtue of his migrant background, John would require extra academic support such as ‘help with English’. As a first-generation student with parents who have little or no knowledge of university, the Alternative student narrative would also predict that John would experience culture shock (Chaskes, 1996 and see Chapter One). In turn, tensions would be expected to arise between John and his parents and John would feel the need to separate both intellectually and physically from them.

The application of only one student experience narrative however, restricts the observer’s potential for seeing other possible narratives and therefore from developing any deeper knowledge of the student as a person within a complex social setting, specifically his family and the family’s relationship with the student. Remaining open to the possibility of other narratives allows a reassessment of existing knowledge about students and their lives. For example, in relating a story in the first interview about events that occurred in the family’s early years of being in Australia, John’s mother opened up an important element of her family’s narrative, describing that how they worked hard in order to feed and clothe their family when they first arrived in Australia and to help them do this they enrolled their two children in crèche. However, a spot inspection of the crêche by John’s father, found his own and other children in dirty nappies, with sour milk and being ignored because they couldn’t speak English. The parents withdrew their children from the crêche and for the next ten years, John’s mother worked at home, taking in sewing jobs. A typical working day for John’s mother during this decade started at nine in the morning and went through until three the following morning.

The significance of this story lies in the existence of what Clandinin and Connelly (2000) refer to as a pre-narrative, a narrative which existed before the researcher’s inquiry started and of which the researcher may or may not be made aware. In this case, the pre- narrative related to migration from Malta to Australia and the hardships the family faced and overcame. Alongside the family’s pre-narrative of migration, was my own migration narrative from the UK and our sharing of them. The intersection of these narratives led to an intimacy between researcher and participants that was qualitatively different from that felt with the other families in this study and stemmed from the shared knowledge of what it is like to be a hemisphere apart from the people one loves. This intimacy was

encapsulated when John’s mother proudly showed me photographs of her mother and other relatives in Malta who had passed away since she moved to Australia.

It is usual to think of ‘first-generation’ students as isolated within a university

environment they know little or nothing about (see Chaskes, 1996). If the first-generation student moves away from home or attends a university some distance away from their home-town then this can increase their isolation. This double isolation is thought to be the cause of much distress and problems for the first-generation student. Prior to 1991, John might well have had this experience because he would have had to travel a

reasonable distance away from home each day to the ‘other side of town’, as a university prior to this time did not exist in the western region of Melbourne. However, the creation of a university in 1991, at campuses across the western suburbs, has created greater access to higher education for students from the west of Melbourne which has led to interesting new student experiences. For example, the university campus that John attended was very close to his western suburbs home. Furthermore, in much the same way that the Maltese families in Terry et al’s (1993) study described their lives in Melbourne’s western suburbs, far from relating an expected story of lack of educational opportunities or infrastructure about where she lived, John’s mother reported the

advantages of their suburb and their lives:

kinder down the road…the primary’s at the back too. Good location here! (John’s mother, Interview 1)

and thus supported McConville’s argument that students who are perceived to be at a disadvantage, often do not see themselves that way:

the notion of being deprived does not occur to them all that often. Different to the rest of Melbourne certainly, but deprived? How could they feel deprived responded several, when they enjoyed living in the West, when their parents often owned their own homes close to work and with easy access to the city and to the countryside? Some even felt that pampered youth of wealthier suburbs were culturally deprived. (McConville, 1991: 19-20)

Although the university had only existed for six years at the time of the interview, John did not experience an Archetypal ‘culture shock’ which Chaskes (1996) identified as being typical of first-generation student. This was because sufficient time had passed for there to be a group of young people who John knew and who had experienced attending the same university close to home. In this way, although a first-generation student, John had learned about the university before he went there and in much the same way as a parents who had attended university might pass on their stories and experiences1 of university to their children:

I wasn’t scared…a lot of my friends (are) doing those courses, they always tell me how good it is and everything else like that…Whenever I can’t get the car I go for a walk, or just get the bus. I always get there though. I get a lift off some friends cos I’ve got a lot of friends from this area who go down to (names campus) (John, Interview 1).

Similarly, and contrary to social integration theories in which students are encouraged to separate from their families and high schools (see Chapter One), John had remained very much connected to this earlier part of his life. Furthermore, whether it was old school

1

In 1993 when I first started to teach at John’s campus, a student told me how as a child he and his friends used to ride his bike on what was then just a large area of dirt. He said he found it hard to believe that the same mound of dirt was now a university campus and that he was a student there. Just a few years later, there was no such disbelief for John who considered the campus to be an established part of his community.

friends or high school teachers, these connections had helped rather than hindered his transition to university:

I’m still good friends with some of the teachers and I still talk to them and go and visit them and stuff…and if I have a problem with university, they would be able to help me to their knowledge. And I’ve visited them a couple of times asking them for help and they have helped me. So that has been an advantage for me as well. A lot of other people don’t usually go back to my old school, they really hate it, hate the teachers, but I found that teachers work well when you’re friends with them, more so than when you are enemies (John, Interview 1).

Money, or more usually lack of it, is a common and important element of the Alternative student experience narrative, with first-generation students and their parents often

struggling to meet the financial demands of a higher education course. In John’s case, living at home highlighted money as an issue in a way which might not have been revealed had John lived away from home. Specifically, John’s mother was anxious that her son was not in class very often. Having estimated that the family would be paying $10,000 for their son’s education, not being at university all day, five days a week had led her to the conclusion that she was not getting value for money:

It’s a lot of money for three days work…the other two days he’s got off. He’s always on the computer typing…It’s a lot of money for that. I think it’s a rip off (John’s mother, Interview 1).

John’s father was also concerned about the small amount of time his son had to attend university:

when you talk about uni, you know, you expect like he’s going to do four days a week you know (John’s father, Interview 1).

If John had lived away from home, his parents would not been able to observe the rhythm of his days and weeks and presumably they would not have felt the same need to question what was happening in their son’s education. Physical distance from their son’s

closer to the comings and goings of their son’s university life meant that they were more able to criticise them. The financial pressures felt by John’s parents were real and it is easy to see how a student studying for three years at the family’s expense but not on campus very often could be considered highly indulgent and wasteful.

The parents’ history of working long hours to provide for their family and their desire to maintain integrity as good parents were two major issues throughout the interviews. While John’s mother was able to keep a closer eye on her son because she was at home, John’s father felt more distanced from the every day goings on of the household:

I don’t see him that much, because I be (sic) at work, I work twelve hours a day (John’s father, Interview 1).

Like the families in Terry et al (1993) he wanted something better for his sons, wanting them to work with their brains rather than in poor conditions in a factory like himself:

We didn’t have that opportunity to learn to go to uni and all that back home in those days (John’s father, Interview 1).

John’s mother encapsulated the reality of this difference in the following comment:

We’re only here to work in this world (John’s mother, Interview 2)

The hardships they had experienced and the importance of work in helping to relieve some of those hardships meant that the world of employment was central to their identity. As such, the Alternative student experience emerged whereby the world of work was a known world but the world where paid work could be postponed, was a strange one. This strangeness was highlighted by John’s mother who emphasised that she and her husband had stopped their schooling at age fourteen and so were not aware of how universities operated which created fear:

I was more scared than him…it was starting a new life, a new course, three years, four years, I don’t know what’s going on I don’t know how they work

cos we’ve never been to uni, I don’t know if all the kids pass because you been three years in the course or if there’s some dumb kids that they don’t pass! I don’t know how they work (John’s mother, Interview 1).

Their search for answers to important questions had remained unanswered or unresolved, resulting in John’s mother feeling uncomfortable with her son’s decision to go to

university, a discomfort felt in part because she knew little about university life.

However, she utilised her participation in the research to help her. In the same way that John had sought insights from his older friends about university, an inquiring look from John’s mother signaled that she considered my role to be to provide similar insights to her. In a situation where information of the sort she required was scarce, John’s mother storied me as information provider. On seeing and hearing her discomfort in not knowing certain things about university, she alerted my long-held resolve that I would help to explain the university system if and when necessary or requested. Clandinin and

Connelly refer to this as how we are storied as researchers by participants in our enquiries

Of course, the landscapes on which we work are storied. Of course, as researchers on these landscapes we will be storied by those with whom we work. (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000: 177)

While universities work hard to keep parents at a distance, John’s parents busily tried to find a space for themselves within their son’s university experience. For example, John’s mother made a very powerful entrance into her son’s university experience narrative by asking her son to tell a story which she titled “how he proved me wrong”. The telling of this story gave not only an important insight into understanding John’s responses to university but to his mother’s anxieties about him going there. Clandinin and Connelly point to the significance of family stories that are passed on from generation to

generation, stating that they are often told “when we are trying to give an account of ourselves and when people, frequentlyparents, are establishing values.” (2000: 113).

To some readers the ways in which the family members spoke to and about each other might seem shocking in their honesty and suggest a harsh family environment. However, this was not the case. The obvious love and concern that they had for each other was clear

throughout the interviews demonstrated through exchanges of smiles, winks and nods. For example, John told a story which was an overheard conversation between his mother and relatives about himself. They were comparing John and his younger brother. This story turned out to be a significant one in terms of revealing John’s motivation to go to university. John overheard his mother say that she thought John’s brother would do well at school but that John would not:

my mum started to say to all the other ladies there, like my brother’s going to make it, he’s the smartest one in the family. We’ve got no hope in John. He’s going to be nothing. He’s hopeless (John, Interview 1).

On overhearing this conversation, John said that he had felt like crying but didn’t because his cousin was there. He said: “I just wanted to kill her.” (John, Interview 1) John’s mother said that on overhearing this conversation, her son declared:

I’m going to go to uni to prove you wrong (John’s mother, Interview 1).

Another way in which John’s mother wrote herself into her son’s university experience was through control of the domestic space. By placing her son under a certain amount of surveillance she was able to write herself into her son’s university experience narrative, in this case as gatekeeper and protector. For example, if she knew that John was studying, she shielded him from friends:

I go, no he’s not here…I have to otherwise he get (sic) interrupted… I wanted him to stay there (John’s mother, Interview 1).

This gate-keeping allowed her to offer maternal protection and maintain domestic control at a time when she knew little about her son’s university experiences. This shared

negotiation of physical and conversational space meant that John’s mother could take ownership of and be part of John’s new life as a university student while at the same time maintaining her role as mother. John’s mother highlighted her strong connection to her son by relating her control of physical and conversational space when she sensed a problem. She said that she would switch off the television and suggest they talk things

through and called this “Mother talk” and said she did this with both her sons. This self- labeling of her intervention highlights not only its importance to her but the ritualised nature of it.

The control and surveillance of physical space however did not run only one way. Running parallel with the control of the space by the mother was John’s insistence of the family needing to adapt to his new needs. For example, John’s mother had to deal with her son’s insistence that being a university student required a level of quiet in the home. She said:

as soon as he comes in we all shut our mouths and be quiet (John’s mother, Interview 1).

The emergence of John taking over some control within the family was also evident in his own words and in his own ebullient and jockeying style. John’s way of speaking to